Comments:
After spending a year at UVM playing and after a few more months working at Howe Scales, I joined the Army and became a Russian interpreter from 1963 to 1967 as a staff sergeant in ASA. I then came back to UVM and graduated in 1969 with a B.A. in German / Russian. I then attended SUNY at Buffalo where I received my Masters 1972 in German Literature. I continued on and got my ABD but never finished my PhD.
In 1978 I got a job at a private catholic boys highschool in Buffalo, St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute, where I spent the next 30 happy years teaching mostly German but also some Russian and some math. In 1978 I also met my future wife, Theresa. During the next 30 years I took 10 groups of high school kids to Germany as director of the Buffalo / Dortmund Sister City Committee. Every third summer I took 20+ kids to Germany for a month and hosted 20+ German kids for a month here in Buffalo. For the last 20 years I also ran another yearly program whereby 9 to 15 German teens spent 4 months here in Buffalo attending school. I loved my job, and I loved watching my kids in school, where they both took German so I saw them every day for all four years. In 2007 I got injured and had a total knee replacement, followed in 2009 by knee replacement on my other knee and vocal cord surgery. I was forced to retire and I don't really like retirement. Three months ago I had major spinal fusion surgery so I'm not in the best of shape. I've had a good life, a great family, and the wonderful feeling of being totally trusted in my job of positively inflluencing youth.
